


they’re gonna be cool, happy, genius heroes (i’m gonna miss ’em so much)

by retweet_this



Category: Pundit & Broadcast Journalist RPF (US), Real News RPF
Genre: Captain America AU, Drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 13:08:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14057628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/retweet_this/pseuds/retweet_this
Summary: what he remembers under the ice.





	they’re gonna be cool, happy, genius heroes (i’m gonna miss ’em so much)

jake tapper, born in brooklyn in 1918; his father died somewhere in germany during the first great war and his mother is sick but, well, none of that deterred him from being a good kid?

he loves the city and the city takes care of him in return. it sees him defending the weak, as weak as he is, and it gives him a friend - abilio james acosta. everyone calls him jim, but jake calls him “best friend.”

it’s lonely in the city but he’s not alone, not really. he’s friendly to people and people are friendly to him but. it’s really just jim he likes to hang out with. jim, who as they grow up, gets bigger and tougher and well, more handsome. girls love him, boys want to be him, but he’s always with jake.

even when his mom dies and he thinks he’s all alone, he just has to look up and jim’s there. with him. ‘till the end of the line.

until he’s shipped off to the war. “everyone’s got to serve their country,” jim tells him, during some art class jake dragged him to that doesn’t matter now because. jim’s leaving.

“then I should too,” jake counters and the smile jim gives him, fond and sad, it’s enough to make him feel crazy.

jim takes him to the boxing ring. jim takes him to recruiting centers in all of the boroughs, brings him home when they reject him.

“come on,” jim says, when they’re at the fair. “you don’t want to go to the war. you’re better off here, watching baseball and getting all the ladies left behind.” he laughs and he tries to be nice but. it’s not enough.

the girl jim picked out for their date is nice but the recruitment desk is nicer. jake tries again.

they don’t give him a 4F this time. they give him to a german scientist - at first jake’s heart nearly explodes (he’s heard rumors of the camps in poland, they know he’s jewish, what if this is a trap) but.

“do you want to kill nazis?” blitzer asks.

“yes,” jake says. “so they don’t kill anyone else.”

blitzer smiles. it’s a nice smile. he looks like he’d be a good father or grandfather to some small children. “i can offer you a chance.”

jake doesn’t hesitate. “i’ll take it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the strategic scientific reserve isn’t really the army, based on what he’s been told, but like blitzer said - it’s a chance. that’s more than he’s ever gotten before and it should be enough.

colonel king doesn’t think he’s ready. jake can tell by the looks he gives him when he’s training with all the other recruits, lagging behind sometimes, asthma flaring up and clogging his airways, not to mention the constant bullying and harassment by the others. they think he’s stupid. naive. tiny. unworthy.

but blitzer believes in him. and not only him - agent jennifer brown. she’s british and she’s. she’s pretty. there, he said it. jim would laugh and tease him relentlessly if he knew. (but jim is gone, he’s off in the war, and jake has to find him).

(that doesn’t stop him from jumping on the dummy grenade when king throws it. and it doesn’t stop his heart from racing at the look brown gives him as they drive away.)

blitzer comes by his lab late at night and tells him of a Nazi man who forced him to make a serum. something that would make him stronger than anyone, let him seize a power under the earth that would make him invincible.

“but you didn’t answer my question,” jake points out. “why me?”

blitzer rolls his eyes. “you’re an impatient one, aren’t you? maybe I should pick someone else for the experiment.” he laughs when jake’s eyes widen and nudges him gently. “I’m joking. sometimes I do that.”

blitzer makes him promise to be a good man. jake promises he will. it’s the last conversation the two of them will ever have.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

in the car ride to the facility, jake avoids talking about how he’s gotten beaten up in every alley along the way. how it was always jim who had to pull him out and rescue him, save him from the bullies and himself.

“you’re always getting into trouble, tapper,” he’d laugh.

but brown sees the star of david around his neck and she gives him a small look. “we’ll have to take that when you go in, but I can keep it safe for you.”

“thank you,” jake says. he clears his throat, a tad awkwardly, and mumbles something about respecting women and armed forces and brown gives him a look.

“you have no idea how to talk to a woman, do you?”

“this is the longest conversation I’ve had with one.”

there’s something about it, jake knows they’re going to be friends.

the procedure happens. jake doesn’t feel weak anymore. he doesn’t look weak either. he thinks he could take on the white world.

he takes on a single Nazi spy instead, at the cost of the rest of the serum and blitzer’s life. he dies in his arms, and the promise hangs between them.

jake’s gonna be a good man or he’s gonna die trying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

saying something like that is so much harder than doing something. general zucker thinks he’s too valuable of an asset to lose and somehow in the midst of it all, jake finds himself selling war bonds.

“sell off a few bonds, bonds buy bullets, bullets kills nazis,” senator schumer explains. “bing bang boom. you’re an american hero.”

jake doesn’t want to be a hero, he just wants to fight in the war so the war will end.

his body is different than before. it’s fuller, stronger, muscular. he can lift cars without breaking a sweat. he can sell hundreds of bonds a show. he can have the eye of every single woman on him and any of their hands if he wanted.

he reads his lines, he smiles with the girls, he punches Hitler in the face (that part is good, even though he can’t do it for real), and he sells bonds.

“you’re doing great, kid,” schumer assures him, whenever they meet.

jake sighs and drops down his America shield. “i don’t know,” he says. “i don’t feel good about all this mindless propaganda.”

“it’s not propaganda if you’re helping.”

“is it helping?”

schumer doesn’t answer. instead he finagles a way for jake to take his show to europe. jake gets there and the girls are all ready to spread American cheer but.

jake isn’t. he sees the gaunt looks on their faces, their depressed eyes, their full-body exhaustion. his show isn’t for them, it’s for people back home who get to have fun and never deal with reality in their lives.

jake lets the girls do the show and he sits in the tent and draws. he draws what he always draws, small dogs and flowers and memories of a happier time.

“that’s a nice drawing,” brown says, when she comes up from behind him. jake blushes and shuts his book quickly.

they talk for a bit, jake sighs and mumbles, “they look like they’ve been through hell,” and brown tells him that only fifty men from the 107 returned.

the 107.

it takes 5 seconds after learning jim hasn’t made it back for jake to decide he’s gonna bring him back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

jake still isn’t quite sure what ”fondue” is supposed to mean, before cuomo drops him down and he’s falling right into enemy territory in the dead of night.

he’s not sure if it’s muscle memory from getting into fights as a kid or the serum doing its thing but he. he makes it. somehow. through the enemies and through the security and then he’s inside the facility.

he frees the captive soldiers without much difficulty, hands them weapons, tells them to riot and escape, and one of them grabs his arm. ”you know what you’re doing?”

“yeah,” jake says, confidently. ”i knocked out hitler over 200 times.” the look the guy gives him is priceless, but the feeling dissipates as soon as he’s off in search of jim.

and he finds him, hurt, groaning, bleeding a little on what looks like an operating table, but. it’s jim. he’s alive. it’s all jake can do not to sink into the floor with relief.

he removes his restraints and helps him sit up and jim’s body leans against him as he mumbles, groggy, tired, ”jake?”

jake’s mouth is dry, he moves him to his feet. ”come on,” he says, and they shuffle out of the room. he barely chuckles as he lets out a long, relieved sigh. ”i thought you were dead.”

jim looks him up and down and the corners of his mouth quirk just slightly. ”i thought you were shorter.”

it’s not all fun and games, of course not - they run into schmidt while they’re escaping and watch him turn into red skull (“you don’t have one of those, do you?” of course jim makes a bad joke at an inappropriate time) but they get out of the facility alive.

they return to base, with everyone else, as heroes. they all cheer for captain america

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

jake spares no time getting down to business. he’s finally allowed into the room where it happens and they listen to him as he tells them about the map he saw in schmidt’s offices, of the hydra bases, of their next targets.

zucker cracks his knuckles. ”what do you say, tapper? think you could wipe hydra off the map?”

jake nods. of course he can. not alone, though. ”i’ll need a team.”

in a corner of the bar, jim laughs as he watches jake charm the future howlin’ commandos into joining him. he shakes his head when jake sits down beside him and grins. ”they’re all idiots.”

“i guess they’re stealing your shtick, huh?” jake replies and they both laugh. there’s something in jake’s chest that he hasn’t felt in so long and his smile seems so much brighter, everything does. ”ready to follow captain america into the jaws of death?”

jim pauses for a long time. he takes a long, slow sip of his drink. ”as long as you keep the suit.”

“if that’s all it takes.” and they drink into the night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

it’s a rough time, finding the bases, destroying the bases, sticking together. cuomo made him a special shield - supposedly bulletproof, from the rarest metal on the planet (“fuck they’re really pulling out all the stops for you, huh? got any more of that serum?” ”shut up, jim”) and the commandos get fancy weapons from the bases they destroy and it’s all.

it feels like they’re winning.

at nights, dugan and jim drink each other under the table, gabe and dernier try to teach jake french, brown reminds them all they’ve got an early morning tomorrow and everyone lets out a long groan.

“come on, agent,” jim groans. ”don’t we deserve some time to celebrate?”

“we’ll celebrate when it’s done,” she replies. she gives jake a stern look and jake gives jim a helpess shrug.

“she’s right.”

jim rolls his eyes. “he’s always had a thing for strong women,” he mock-whispers to gabe and laughs harder when jake tries throwing his drink at him.

everything feels amazing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and then jake sees the railing from the train break and then he sees jim fall and then he doesn’t see him anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

brown finds him in the empty bar where, ages ago, centuries, even, he and the commandos laughed the night away. all of them together. all of them alive.

“i can’t get drunk,” he says, when he hears her enter. who else would find him here? ”dr. blitzer said the serum would do something to my body, but... i didn’t think it would be that.”

she sits down beside him, her leg against his, he feels her body sigh. ”it wasn’t your fault.”

“that’s not true.” even with the serum, he hears his voice crack near the end. fuck the serum. it should’ve been enough -  _it should’ve been enough to save the one person who mattered._

“you did everything you could,” brown says, gently. her voice is soft and smooth and comforting. “did you believe in your friend? did you respect him?” he nods, barely, and she squeezes his arm. “then stop blaming yourself. allow acosta the dignity of his choice. he damn well must have thought you were worth it.”

 _i’m with you ’til the end of the line._ jake wipes his eyes with the palms of his hands. he made one promise to a dead man and now he’ll make another one - he’s gonna kill schmidt and all of hydra or he’s gonna die trying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

it’s funny how it happens. he’s on the plane and it’s nose-diving right into the arctic and he hears brown’s voice in his ear, pleading with him, begging him to try and save himself. he thinks he hears her say she loves him.

the night jake got the commandos together, the night before they all shipped off to fight once more, they all got drunk. bubbly, happy drunk, but also drunk on liquor. jim didn’t want to sleep that night, he kept hollering and cheering and jumping on the bed, he was so full of life.

jake had rolled his eyes and tried to pull him down, but jim just grabbed his arms and spun him around and it was almost like they were dancing. his hands were on his hips and their faces were so close.

“when all this is over,” jim hummed, softly, ”i wanna take you dancing. back in brooklyn, back home, when everything is over and all back to normal. i’ll teach you how.”

“i’ll hold you to it,” jake said. he doesn’t remember much more of that night, not after jim’s lips brushed against his and his hands cupped the sides of his face and the sounds of the city poured in through the open window as they tumbled into bed, but.

“he never taught me how to dance,” jake says. the ice is close now. so close. the star of david is still around his neck and he takes comfort in it. he thinks of the people he lost.

“jake?” brown says, and that’s the last thing he hears. he closes his eyes.

maybe he’d have time to learn how to dance now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

he doesn’t die. he opens his eyes. and maybe that’s the worst thing to happen

**Author's Note:**

> i swear i'm gonna work on what i'm actually supposed to work on now.


End file.
